Minolta Company, Ltd.

Takeru Butsuzaki

Hiroaki Kubo

Kazuhiko Yukawa

Yasuhiro Morimoto

At power-on, a digital camera starts to operate with a display unit off (state S ). At a subsequent half shutter press of a shutter button, a quick return mirror is flipped down and phase difference AF is performed with live view display off (state S ). At a subsequent full press of the shutter button, the digital camera enters an image capture operation. With a quick return mirror in the up position, a focusing lens is moved to its in-focus, front focus and rear focus positions, at each of which contrast in an AF area of predetermined partial portion of an image is obtained for comparison to select a position of the focusing lens with maximum contrast (state S ). Then, image data is obtained and recorded on a memory card (state S ). With the above processing, the digital camera can perform autofocusing, as circumstances demand, by a contrast AF method.

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Sakai, Japan

Takeru Butsuzaki